Good rotor blanks these days?

My go-to brake company (Centric/StopTech) has suffered a reduction in quality and I don't know what's good anymore. 2008 Mazda5, Hawk HPS 5.0 pads.

There's Raybestos rotors listed on Rock Auto, I'd probably give them a shot.  Grain of salt, no experience with them on something not from America.

I’ve always had the best luck with Balo rotors if they’re available in your application. 

I noticed issues with a set of Centric Premiums, one rear blank on our RAV4 rusted where the pad rides and destroyed the pad.  Other side was perfectly fine.  I can't explain why it happened.

I went with a Raybestos coated rotor to try to prevent the same issue with the new set.  So far, so good, but I only have a few thousand miles on the new brakes.

I recently put some Raybestos advanced technology rotors on my Suburban based on the great results I’m having with some various specialty Raybestos pads on my race car and truck and they seem great so far. 

I also put them on my in laws mazda5 with the Raybestos EHT pads as they had bad pad transfer layer or warping issues, they have not come back with the new setup

I've been told I'm an idiot for liking G-Loc and not running PFC pads. I honestly don't know what's true or real anymore. I've always run the cheapest centric rotors on my street cars and they have been completely unremarkable.

Zimmerman. Only one of the German brands I'm aware of still producing in Germany; astonishingly less rust-prone than every Made in China rotor I've encountered.

I have used Zimmerman in the past.  In fact I ordered a set of centric's off Amazon a couple years back for my 924s and I was shipped Zimmerman.

Another for Raybestos. Impressed so far with their EHT pads and rotors on the X-Terra. We'll see how they hold up to salty winter though.

i've been happy with Centric Premiums (last set i bought was July 2016) and Zimmerman.

EBC's Plain rotors have worked well for me when Centrics kept warping. Not too expensive either.

Thanks everyone. I've been using Centric for years, but have had multiple issues in the last 18 months. The Raybestos stuff looked great but for some reason there was only 1 rear Mazda5 rotor to be had so I had to pass. I found a new company called R1 Concepts selling eLine rotors, but couldn't gather enough empirical data to try them. I ended up going with some PowerStop rotors because they make Hawk's Sector 27 rotors! (Seriously even the base images used in the photos are the same.) 

Zimmerman. Z-Coats if in the salt belt.

I've had good luck with NAPA rotors.

iceracer said:

I've had good luck with NAPA rotors.

I've also had good luck with Napa stuff..  I've been really happy with their rotors and pads.  I even run the rotors on the track cars with no problems, but I do ebc or carbotech pads for those cars..

Don't buy the cheap ones from Advance Auto.  They warp in months of normal driving.  Had it happen on two of the subys this year. Never buying anything from them without a warranty.

Powerstops on my rides. Granted I’m rolling all “American” manufacturers...

Rotors clearly state made in China. Quality of them is prolly an 8/10 for some slotted drilled rotor. So not bad but not all great.

Out of the Centric, Raybestos and a couple others that I can't remember that I've bought over the last few years, I've yet to have a rotor give me issues before I replaced it either due to rust or wear.  The only real failure I've seen is from the OEM rotors on my girlfriend's Prius.  9 years and 150k miles and they got rusty enough that pieces of the braking surface started to flake off (despite being shiny and in apparently good shape beyond rusty cooling vanes). 

For the most part, cast iron rotors don't warp.  They can have runout, but that'll be there from day 1.  If they "warp" afterwards, it's almost always due to burned in pad deposits (which can cause uneven wear and make them feel warped).  And the pad deposits are driver error in most cases. 

If the brakes are good and warm (such as from stopping from 70 on a downhill highway off-ramp) and you sit with your foot on the brakes firmly once you've stopped (especially if the pads aren't well bedded yet), you can end up burning a little bit of pad material onto the rotor.  Do this a few times and you get an uneven rotor surface and hot spots on the rotor where the surface is a little higher (which causes a metallic change in the rotor in those spots, so the unevenness never goes away and often comes back even if the rotors are turned). 

In reply to rslifkin :

I've been getting fracture cracks in the Centric premium rotors. The iron they are using has impurities in it. Also, cheap rotors are thinner and weigh less and often have less cooling vanes. I have actually gotten them to physically warp on track. You can lay them down on a flat table and then rock them side to side. 

I agree with Javelin..  I've had AdvPepZone rotors warp in < 6 months on the same vehicle that run Napa's for a few years trouble free.  I doubt that my wife or I altered our driving style in that time.

 Napa premium here, never really had any issues with them either. 

I always used to use Raybestos but some years ago I kept warping them on my SVT Contour. Two sets!  I decided to go with Wagner brand and when I went to swap the last set of Raybestos rotors with the new Wagners I found that the Wagners were much heavier, as in pounds heavier. The open vanes in the center were smaller but the mass of the cast iron was greater. I never had another problem with warping after the swap.

Cactus said:

I've been told I'm an idiot for liking G-Loc and not running PFC pads. I honestly don't know what's true or real anymore. I've always run the cheapest centric rotors on my street cars and they have been completely unremarkable.

Ditto, I have the cheapest RockAuto Centric rotors on the tow pig (Sequoia), the CX-9, my DD WRX (for like 50k miles), and even the rally car. Never had any issues with any of them (I do generally use higher-end pads though). 

Only rotor I have had totally "delaminate" (or whatever it's called when the contact surface flakes off) were our OEM Mazda rotors on the CX-9, which did it badly (probably due to sticking caliper slides, idk...)

One thing to keep in mind is that on a DD car. most people who think they've warped rotors are actually just getting uneven pad material buildup on the rotors, causing the braking shimmy. A lot of low-noise/low-dust pads can't handle the heat of certain types of driving (and the much heavier weight that vehicles are these days, oerally), and they leave "deposits" on the rotors.

I actually tested this with some badly "warped" rotors. Took them off the car and stuck them on a shelf in my garage for a couple months. After a couple months, I picked them up and whacked them with a heavy mallet, and a E36 M3load of yellowish pad material flaked off in super-thin flakes (not rust, mind you). I put the rotors back on the car, and the vibration under braking was totally gone. 

Now, rotors can certainly warp - but I wouldn't expect that to be the cause of most vibrations on a regular ol street driven car. Usually it's just the lame OEM/cheap pads. This happened with my 2009 WRX's stock pads within 10k miles. I turned the rotors and put Hawk HPS pads on and have never had the issue again. 

I actually took pictures and sent them to Centric, but never heard a reply.  These were Centric premiums with Akebono pads.  I bedded them in properly immediately after installation (by me). I sprayed the rotors with Brake Clean prior to installing,  as well.  The other side was perfectly fine.